A while back I began a series about Marx's theory of "the bourgeoisie" and the relevance of this nineteenth century concept to the modern world. In the first part, I discussed how the economy has become more complex than it was in Marx's time, dealing in particular with the problem of financialization. In the second part, I discussed the way that imperial domination seems to have replaced control of the means of production as the primary locus of economic and political power. In both cases, I came to the same conclusion: though they are certainly relevant and important, these developments do not fundamentally challenge Marx's great insight that political power is ultimately located in control of the means of production.

These were parts one and two - but the careful reader will remember that there is also supposed to be a part three, focusing on identity. How does race fit in to our theory of the bourgeoisie? What about gender? What about all of the different forms of identity which we see at work in our politics, and which are clearly relevant to any conversation about political power?

Part three is coming, but I want to do it justice. Which means a lot of time on research and even more time working out my thoughts. In the meantime other takes will keep coming, but rest assured that part three is on the way.

If we are even minimally concerned with social justice and equality, it's pretty simple to make the case that Democrats should fight for the interests of black voters. In recent years, however, a different argument has become popular: Democrats should campaign for black votes because this is a strategy that wins elections. It's a line of argument that lends itself to the sensibilities of a calculating, mercenary, and partisan political class of armchair quants and "data-journalists", so I don't think that we should be surprised by its popularity - but I also think that it's deeply suspicious, and extremely dangerous.

But if you insist on being a bottom-line obsessed demographic wonk, then I promise you, those aren't the numbers that the Democratic Party cares about. When a campaign strategist looks at race in Alabama, this is what she's going to see:

Yes, black Alabamans supported Jones almost unanimously - though they always support the Democrat almost unanimously. Yes, black Alabamans had good turnout - though they always have good turnout. Those numbers only improved on 2012 by a few percentage points at the very most, but none of this was decisive.

What clearly changed between 2012 and 2017 is that Jones won 10% more white votes than Obama, while Moore earned 12% less than Romney - a swing of over 20 points. In comparison, black voters only gave Jones a 1% higher margin than Obama had.

Again: if you are a mercenary Democratic strategist, you are going to look at these numbers and decide that Democrats can take black voters for granted and need to focus on white voters. This is the lesson that Northam taught them in Virginia, and this is the lesson that Jones is teaching them in Alabama. The way you combat this is not to promote a politics of amoral demographic gaming, but to insist that Democrats need to fight for black voters regardless of what opportunistic (and largely superficial) data-wonkery suggests.